Olympus Has Fallen lawsuit settles after Gerard Butler said he’s owed at least $10M in profits

Last Updated on November 3, 2023

While Hollywood continues to negotiate with SAG-AFTRA for agreeable terms to the ongoing strike, Gerard Butler is resolving a dispute with producers of Olympus Has Fallen, the actor’s 2013 blockbuster starring Butler, Aaron Eckhart, and Morgan Freeman. Butler settled an Olympus Has Fallen lawsuit on Tuesday over allegations that he’s owed at least $10 million in profits for the film.

Defendants Nu Image and Millennium Media notified the court, saying the deal depends on completing specific terms within 45 days. In 2021, Butler and his production company G-Base Entertainment sued in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging some film producers had earned tens of millions of dollars but refused to fork over their portion of the prize. Butler says a “comprehensive, premeditated scheme” was enacted to “grossly misrepresent the finances of the film.”

Butler, who stars in and produces Olympus Has Fallen, says he’s owed box office bonuses, six percent of the domestic earnings, two percent of foreign revenue, and ten percent of the project’s net profits. In the filing, an audit revealed that Nu Image and Millennium Media misrepresented earnings from the film by $11 million. Additionally, they failed to report nearly $8 million in payments to senior executives. Other wrinkles mentioned in the paperwork are Nu Image and Millennium Media’s failure to report the film’s domestic revenue by $17.5 million and unpaid yet deducted residuals. The absence of payments for residuals runs the risk of affecting the crew’s healthcare eligibility. Adding fuel to the fire, Butler says distribution agreements were fraudulent, meaning distributors could fudge the gross receipts.

“Producers instructed those distributors to deduct certain amounts from the grosses they would report to Producers,” stated the complaint. “Producers, in turn, did not include these deducted amounts in the financial information provided to Butler.”

“Producers then reneged on their promise to have certain of those third party distributors account to and pay Butler directly. This allowed Producers to control and manipulate how they would report the film’s proceeds to Butler,” the filing states.

Details about the settlement have not been made public, and representatives from Millenium Media did not respond to questions about the case.

Do you hope Butler and others get what they’re owed? Is this another example of higher-ups taking advantage of their workers? Let us know what you think in the comments below.